The tunnel ran straight for hundreds of yards and they stayed with it all the way to the end, despite the side corridors they came across from time to time. At the end of the tunnel was a row of three airlocks, identical to the ones in the city above, and they felt a sharp stab of fear when their questing hands felt out what they were, thinking they’d come to another impassable dead end. These doors had been left open, though, and they were able to walk straight through without any trouble. Whatever catastrophe had ravaged the city above had evidently not affected this part of the mines.

     On the other side of the airlocks was a large circular chamber at least thirty feet across, and Shaun’s sword felt out the outline of a ten foot wide shaft in the centre. After some thought they decided to risk a little light, so Diana gingerly brought out her little caroli flower, allowing its light to illuminate the room.

     Some rusty winch equipment was attached to the ceiling above the shaft, looking as though it was getting ready to crumble to dust, and the remains of another couple of trolleys lay in a heap against the wall. The shaft went down into the unknown darkness, its sides furred with mana moss, and they saw a set of rusty iron handholds along one side, presumably once used by the miners to climb to and from the rock face. They looked scarcely more solid than the winch equipment, but when Shaun got down on his hands and knees to tug the uppermost one he found it to be quite solid and secure, easily capable of supporting his weight. Whether the others further down were in as good condition, of course, was a completely different question.

     There was no other way out, and they all looked at each other, all thinking the same thing, until Shaun broke the silence. “I’ll go first," he said. "I’m the heaviest, so if they can support my weight they’ll be able to support the rest of you as well.” He swung his legs over the edge.

     “Be careful!” warned Lirenna fearfully. “Oh if only we still had that Autumnleaf ring.”

     “Well we haven’t, so there’s no point wishing for it,” replied the soldier and, with a whispered prayer to whatever Gods might be listening, he grasped the iron handhold and slowly put more and more of his weight onto it. When it was supporting all his weight and still showed no sign of breaking or coming loose, he carefully began to make his way down.

     The others watched nervously as he descended, Diana holding her silver caroli flower out over the shaft to illuminate him. Its light was beginning to fade, however, as the holy power of Caroli began to leave it, so Thomas added a drop of activating fluid to the glowbottle and soon its ruddy red glow had replaced the cleric’s pure, pearly white light. They were all relieved by this, despite the fact that it reduced their range of visibility considerably. The duller light was much less likely to be seen by the Konnens.

     After a few minutes Shaun called softly up to tell them he’d reached the bottom. “A couple of rungs came away in my hands,” he said, “but all the rest feel pretty secure. Come on down.”

     They made their way down one at a time, being careful to watch out for the missing rungs, and soon they were all standing at the bottom, looking around curiously. They were in another cavern. They couldn’t tell how big it was, as the glowbottle only illuminated a small part of the wall they’d climbed down and small patches of the floor and ceiling, leaving darkness on their other three sides, but some quality of the air and the sound of their soft, whispering voices told them that it was big, probably at least a hundred yards across. Thomas hurriedly hid the glowbottle in his clothing, fearing that the Konnens might even now be entering the same cavern through another entrance. He explained his fears to the others and they agreed, thinking it safer to remain in darkness for a while.

     After a brief whispered conference they moved off to the left, Shaun leading the way and tapping the floor ahead with his sword as before while the rest followed in single file, their hands on the shoulders on the person in front. The moss was soft beneath the soldier’s bare feet, but now and then he trod on the squirming form of some insect or worm and once something scuttled up his bare body inside his bathrobe. He shook it away with a low curse.

     “We needn’t have bothered looking for provisions after all," Jerry whispered to Lirenna.

     The demi shae grimaced in disgust while the tiny nome sniggered in amusement.

     Now that they had a few moments in which to think, Thomas found himself thinking about Shaun’s behaviour when he and Matthew had fought the four Konnens. He’d seemed to go completely berserk, like a wild animal. Even Diana had been shocked, and she’d known him all her life. But then, maybe it’s not that hard to understand, he thought. After all, he and Matthew had spent two weeks locked up in a tiny, filthy cell in appalling conditions, and he’d heard rumours during their time in the Konnens’ service that the dungeon guards sometimes abused their prisoners in monstrous and shocking ways.

     He’d heard one particular story about the Captain of the dungeon guards, an utterly revolting creature called Rakkus, that he was particularly anxious the girls never found out about. If Rakkus had done the same thing to Shaun and Matthew as he’d heard he’d done to some of his other prisoners, then Shaun’s reaction upon seeing Konnen guards again was all too understandable. The only wonder was that Matthew hadn’t reacted in the same way.

     Maybe he didn’t do it to both of them, a small voice inside his head suggested. After all, everyone agrees that Shaun’s the best looking of the two. He shook his head to drive the horrid voice away. Maybe I should talk to him sometime, he thought, but immediately knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. Shaun wouldn’t want to talk about it. He’d just want to forget it had ever happened. Best to just let it lie, he thought. If the soldier ever decided he wanted to talk about it, he'd listen and offer whatever support he could, but he wouldn't raise the subject first. No pressure on him.

     The wall they were following was highly irregular, snaking from left to right to form short dead end tunnels and inward thrusting walls of rock. After a couple of hours, though, they found themselves following a stretch of wall that was much straighter than anything they’d passed before, and when Thomas pulled his glowbottle out for a cautious look around, they found to their surprise that they were in another tunnel. It had an arching ceiling and wheel ruts just visible in the flat, moss covered floor, and both the way ahead and the way they’d come were hidden from sight by bends in the tunnel.

     “Can we stop here, do you think?” asked Lirenna wearily. “I’d like to rest for a while.”

     “I think we all need to rest,” agreed Diana. “I know I do. How long have we been going?”

     None of them knew. Even the demi shae had lost track of the passage of time, but judging from the weariness they all felt they guessed that it must be getting on towards evening in the city above, so they decided to make camp for the ‘night’. They ate a brief meal of Konnen trail rations, washed it down with a small swallow of water, and then Shaun and Jerry took the first watch while the rest of them made themselves as comfortable as possible on the mossy floor.

☆☆☆

     The ‘night’ was long and quiet, the silence broken only by the scuttling of insects and the scurrying of some kind of small animals, probably rats. Their guess about the presence of cats in the caverns was confirmed when they heard the snarling and spitting of two large toms somewhere in the darkness and once, while Thomas and Jerry were on watch, the nome whispered that he could see the body heat of a large animal, about cat sized, about a dozen yards away. Thomas reached for the glowbottle, but the movement alarmed the cat and it turned tail and fled.

     Apart from that, the night, if it was night, passed uneventfully, and although they had no way of knowing how long they’d all slept, there came a time when they were all stirring, feeling much refreshed and rested, and by unspoken agreement they decided that the night was over. They ate a brief breakfast of trail rations, the wizards re-read their spells and Diana spent several minutes praying to Caroli. Then they packed up and moved on.

     They hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards or so when they came upon another airlock, both doors standing open like the one they’d passed the day before, and stepping through they found that the tunnel branched on its other side, and that both branches had their own airlocks, possibly so that if any one tunnel should somehow find itself in vacuum, people would still be able to travel through the other two.

     “We should have spent the night here,” said Shaun. “We could have closed the doors to hide ourselves from sight, and we would have had a tunnel to escape down even if we became trapped between two parties of Konnens. There are bound to be more places like this, maybe we can make camp in another one tonight."

     The others agreed, and after a moment’s thought they took the tunnel on the left.

     The tunnel sloped gently downwards, but after a couple of hundred yards during which it twisted and turned like a dying snake it began to slope upwards again. Water had gathered at the lowest point. Clear, pure water reaching a maximum depth of about three feet, and they took the opportunity to refill their water bottles after which the two soldiers leapt at the chance for a quick bath. They took off their bathrobes, waded in and scrubbed away at the grime and filth that had covered their bodies during their time in the dungeons.

     Thomas had expected Shaun to be shy about uncovering his body after what he thought had happened to him, but instead the woodsman was as unconcerned about his nudity as a child and splashed away happily with Matthew, visibly glad that they were together and free again, after a fashion. Thomas noticed that Diana was also examining the soldier's body curiously, looking for any injuries that might need healing. His nudity meant nothing to her, of course. As siblings they'd seen each other's bare skin many times since their earliest childhood.

     What was more puzzling was the complete absence of any sign that the man had suffered any physical abuse while in captivity. No chafed skin, no bruises. Only some nasty, infected rat bites spoiled the perfection of his skin. Diana leaned in close to heal them with a touch and a word while the man continued to scrub. She was looking puzzled, Thomas saw, and he suddenly realised that she must have heard the same stories he had. Even Lirenna was eyeing Shaun's body discretely, out of the corner of her eye. Thomas looked at her, she looked back at him and a look of confusion passed between them.

     If the guards hadn't physically abused them, thought Thomas, then why had Shaun attacked the Konnens so recklessly? Why had he seemed so mad with fury? Maybe just being locked in a filthy dungeon for two weeks had been enough to bring on his berserk reaction to seeing Konnen guards. Two weeks of not being able to protect his sister from the threats that surrounded her on all sides. He frowned. It was possible, he supposed, but it just didn't ring true to him.

     He would wait for the right moment, the wizard decided, and then he would just ask him. He would wait until he and Shaun were apart from the others, so they could talk privately. If there was something Shaun wanted to get off his chest, he'd give him a chance to do so, and if, for some reason, he didn't want to talk about it then he'd respect his decision. He would ask, though. As soon as a suitable opportunity arrived, he would ask him.

     A few minutes later the two soldiers stepped out again, pink and clean once more, leaving the once pure water cloudy with muck. They pulled on their bathrobes, and then the six of them continued on down the tunnel.